The ability for individuals to day trade coincided with the extreme bull market in technological issues from 1997 to early 2000, known as the dot-com bubble. From 1997 to 2000, the NASDAQ rose from 1200 to 5000. Many naive investors with little market experience made huge profits buying these stocks in the morning and selling them in the afternoon, at 400% margin rates.
Risk warning: Trading Forex (foreign exchange) or CFDs (contracts for difference) on margin carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all investors. There is a possibility that you may sustain a loss equal to or greater than your entire investment. Therefore, you should not invest or risk money that you cannot afford to lose. Before using Admiral Markets UK Ltd, or Admiral Markets PTY Ltd services, please acknowledge all of the risks associated with trading.
There are two primary divisions of professional day traders: those who work alone and/or those who work for a larger institution. Most day traders who trade for a living work for a large institution. These traders have an advantage because they have access to a direct line, a trading desk, large amounts of capital and leverage, expensive analytical software, and much more. These traders are typically looking for easy profits that can be made from arbitrage opportunities and news events, and these resources allow them to capitalize on these less risky day trades before individual traders can react.

In March 2000, this bubble burst, and a large number of less-experienced day traders began to lose money as fast, or faster, than they had made during the buying frenzy. The NASDAQ crashed from 5000 back to 1200; many of the less-experienced traders went broke, although obviously it was possible to have made a fortune during that time by short selling or playing on volatility.[9][10]

Scalping is the shortest time frame in trading and it exploits small changes in currency prices.[1] Scalpers attempt to act like traditional market makers or specialists. To make the spread means to buy at the Bid price and sell at the Ask price, in order to gain the bid/ask difference. This procedure allows for profit even when the bid and ask don't move at all, as long as there are traders who are willing to take market prices. It normally involves establishing and liquidating a position quickly, usually within minutes or even seconds.

Spread trading This high-speed technique tries to profit on temporary changes in sentiment, exploiting the difference in the bid-ask price for a stock, also called a spread. For example, if a buyer’s bid price drops suddenly, the day trader might step in to buy and then try to quickly resell at the stock’s ask price or higher, earning a small “spread” on the transaction.
Although they’re usually not as orderly as an uptrend, downtrends also tend to move in a step-like or zig-zag fashion. For example, a stock could decline over the course of many days. Then it may retrace part of the loss over the next few days before turning south once more. When this behavior is repeated over time, the downtrend of the chart becomes easier to see. The move downward is the trend itself, with bear rallies or retracements being visible as the counter trend.
ECN/Level 2 quotes: ECNs, or electronic communication networks, are computer-based systems that display the best available bid and ask quotes from multiple market participants and then automatically match and execute orders. Level 2 is a subscription-based service that provides real-time access to the Nasdaq order book composed of price quotes from market makers registering every Nasdaq-listed and OTC Bulletin Board security. Together, they can give you a sense of orders being executed in real time.